Anarchy on the UES

October 5, 2012October 5, 2012

44 rue Volta

I had a meeting here in Paris and was confused by the fact that it’s a total construction site inside. I needed to throw something away and asked where the designated trash can was, since everything looked like garbage. The person laughed. “You can just throw it on the floor,” he said.

He then went on to explain that the interior of place had been “under construction” for years. No progress whatsoever has been made, he told me. “It probably looks worse now than when they started.”

I was confused. What WAS this place when it wasn’t loaning its space to neighbors? Oh, just the local headquarters of the French Communist Party.